ThomasNATION Reviews - Rules of the Game
February 05, 2022
"Once the Americans get hold of it, the whole series would be vulgarized and ruined"
Reverend W. Awdry
After Season 24, there wasn't really any news of an upcoming season for Thomas The Tank Engine and the fandom was kind of split about it: there was one half of the fandom that was thinking the show was over because no new season had been greenlit whereas the other half of the fandom was happy that no new season had been announced or greenlit because they had felt that the show had lost all charm and identity because of the 'Big World, Big Adventures' era. I think it's safe to say that the Thomas community turned a bit toxic, but then something unexpected happened. Something that would bring the entire fandom together...but not in the way one may expect.
In late 2020/early 2021, Mattel announced that Thomas was going through yet another change (like he hasn't had enough of them already). However, they stated that this wasn't going to be just a rebrand-in other words, changing something to suit the needs of the show: for example again, the 'Big World, Big Adventures' rebrand-but instead rebooting the Thomas & Friends franchise completely with an all-new art style. What style that was was unknown to us at the time, but no more than a month later, it happened and the fandom went ballistic. This reboot was an all-new 2-D version of Thomas that had an art style very similar to 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic', it was also abandoning most of the show's deep lore and history just so the season felt like a fresh new take on Thomas. Needless to say, the fandom didn't react well to this, and soon everywhere you went online, you'd see it: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you name it! But now that the fandom's flames of hatred for this controversial reboot seem to have settled down for now and now that some time has passed since the first season wrapped up, were they right? Let's find out as we dive in to the first season of the confusing world of 'All Engines Go'.
RULES OF THE GAME: When Thomas builds an obstacle course for his friends, he gets upset when they won't play with it his way.
Remember how I said that Mattel really only saw Thomas as a giant marketing campaign to sell toys and how most of the show and movies from the original series during Mattel's tenure included out the gate ideas such as Thomas jumping a bridge to sell some dumb set? Well this episode is unfortunately the epitome of that. Yep, four episodes into this reboot and we have officially received our first dud since this episode at least for me seems to exist purely for toys. We've known for years that Thomas is only still around because the toys sell so well and of course they're gonna tie in toys with moments from the show, I expect nothing less, but this, really- this is the point we're at now? Toys should be a by-product of the franchise, not the other way around! A toy is a toy, a playset where Thomas jumps in the air is actually kind of cool because it's a toy. Case in point, the TrackMaster set of Thomas jumping the bridge. But when it has to be shoehorned into the franchise just to advertise it, nah. The words that come to mind are pathetic, shameless, ridiculous, corporate and just sad - I mean the moment that you see Thomas' "super awesome obstacle course" with things such as a mud trap to jump over and a super duper loop-de-looper, you can already hear the words "BUY OUR TOYS" blaring through the screen as if Mattel was assaulting your mind with 'subliminal' messages.
However with that said, does that ultimately make this a bad episode altogether? Actually no, not entirely. Now before you all start angrily typing away on your keyboards again like 'ha ha, we told you this reboot was terrible', allow me to explain: while it is frustrating how this episode mostly feels like one big toy commercial, that's just one half of the episode because the second half of this episode is actually really good thus making this one of those "great on paper, terrible in execution" type of ideas which I think works in an absolutely hilarious way of mocking Mattel's obsession with producing stunt sets for Thomas every year under their tenure - heck, some could argue that Thomas is basically being used as a mouthpiece for Mattel themselves and it works so well that you can't help but laugh at how desperate he's trying to make what will more than likely be the next stunt set in toy stores as the next big thing for the merchandising when the fact that they're trains has always been what made the franchise so memorable! Not only that, but the moral of "everyone has their own ways of having fun" is one that you actually don't hear too often in animated shows nowadays or even at all since there seems to be this rule that today's society keeps wanting to push of how everyone has to like the same things in order to be friends with each other which I find to be incredibly toxic especially since we've had shows like 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic' as well as its spinoff 'Pony Life' that teach their viewers who are both kids and adults that we don't all have to like the same things to be friends...huh, seems as though our little blue tank engine has been taking notes from our equine friends from Equestria.
"Rules Of The Game" is a very double-edged sword type of episode: on one hand, you have what can be summed up as an extremely frustrating commercial for a new toy that will just never sell no matter how cool the company makes it out to be, but on the other hand, you get a hilarious commentary about those companies trying desperately to be cool for the kids on top of having one of the best morals that the franchise has ever given to its audience. So while this may be our first official dud for this reboot, I wouldn't exactly say that it's a full-on dud since there are some things in that dud which are still really really good like I said and that is why I'm giving 'Rules Of The Game' a rating of a 3 out of 5.
Final Rating: 3/5
About the Author: True Blue
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